A viral video reveals how Chick-fil-A has used superior customer service to take over fast food.
Earlier in December, a Chick-fil-A customer posted a video from a location in Wilmington, North Carolina, of an employee named Jeremiah Murrill, 20, taking orders outside in the drive-thru lane with energy and enthusiasm.
“Amazing ordering, everyone,” Murrill tells the customers.
In the past two weeks, the video has been viewed more than 200,000 times. Local news outlets and CNN picked up the story, helping build Murrill’s reputation as a local celebrity.
Murrill has been working at Chick-fil-A for three years and would love to become an operator running his own location, a Chick-fil-A representative told Business Insider.
“I’m so humbled by the attention this video is receiving,” Murrill said in a statement to Business Insider. “I just want to help people in any way I can, so seeing someone’s day transformed by a little kindness is amazing.”
Chick-fil-A has dominated fast-food industry customer-service rankings. This year, it claimed the No. 1 spot on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s annual restaurant report for the fourth year in a row.
Chick-fil-A has strict policies designed to promote customer service, such as having employees say “my pleasure” instead of “you’re welcome.” The company’s unique franchise system allows operators to be hands-on in locations, with each operator typically limited to running a single restaurant.
“Little things like being told ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ — it feels like you’re appreciated as a customer and a human being at Chick-fil-A,” Mark Kalinowski, the founder of Kalinowski Equity Research, told Business Insider earlier this year.
“And especially in today’s very complex world, it’s just very nice to be able to go to a place where you feel appreciated,” Kalinowski continued.
Superior customer service has helped drive massive growth at Chick-fil-A over the past decade. The company went from $3.2 billion in systemwide sales at the end of 2009 to $10.5 billion at the end of 2018, making Chick-fil-A the third-largest fast-food chain in America.
